This last week you would have mostly been finding me locked in several unseemly, sweaty struggles with legions of other parents. It has been an epic campaign with long-term goals and dubious results, needing a moniker like "war on terror" – or, as the shops at the heart of this mammoth odyssey have unanimously named it, Back to School.

And what fear those three words strike. In the already over-anxious mind of an ambitious parent keen to ensure their genius child's singular advancement on their very first day at secondary school, that fear can only be allayed by attempting to secure every last item on the list of vital equipment.

My daughter is about to start at the local comprehensive, Highgate Wood. Her father and I are very happy with the school. Moreover, she is very happy with the school. However, it turns out that all the collective hopes and dreams we've invested in this school can only be realised if she has a purple Perspex protractor. As luck would have it, other parents were ahead of the game and had stealthily been buying up all that stuff before I'd got round to it.

I'd breezily fancied there'd be protractors aplenty. But I had to wrestle a woman to the ground in WH Smith to secure the last remaining purple Perspex protractor. Like a warrior I paid no heed to the shop assistant attempting to prize us apart with her cries of "Madam, we have other protractors!" Don't give me that bollocks. No other bog-standard protractor will do, because it won't match the purple pencil sharpener (with sharpener shard holder, natch), purple rubber (with purple rubber protector) and purple foldable ruler. For the love of God, how is my daughter expected to get into Oxford without colour co-ordinated accoutrement?

And then comes the whole what-to-put-them-all-in dilemma. You might, along with any other uninitiated mortal, be thinking of something along the lines of a satchel – something that will hold books, keep sheets of A4 paper flat, perhaps also boasting compartments for pencils, pens and the like. Prepared to be ridiculed for such a quaint notion. Apparently my daughter "must have a handbag". Why? She's 11. She's not embarking on a career as a legal secretary. This vessel must surely provide carriage for books, colour co-ordinated accoutrement and a PE kit on some days. Unless I can acquire Mary Poppins's carpet bag there isn't a handbag on earth that can accommodate all that.

Having seen off the other Competitive Mother and still triumphantly clutching the chosen protractor, now I nearly come to blows with my own daughter. Surely I'm right about this. She must take something at least approximating a schoolbag. I had thought opting for state school education – in which I firmly believe, and by which we have already been enriched greatly by means of her primary school – had meant it would all be plain sailing from now on, the choppy waters calmed by having made the right choice, locally, socially and morally. But, oh no, what lies beneath is a welter of fashion and accoutrement options, all of which promise to ruin your child's life if a wrong steer is taken. At least private schools don't give you these choices – au contraire, private schools are your first stop if you want to swerve the options maelstrom. Every single item, even down to hairbands, is prescribed. Along with your hefty bill you'll get a detailed list of what your child is to wear (including in their hair) and carry. That's partly why people choose private education – someone will tell you what to do at all times.

But where are my how-to-produce-a-winner instructions? I want her to go to a socially mixed comprehensive, but does that mean I should allow her to choose a socially mixed handbag that bears absolutely no resemblance to the schoolbag doubtless sported by all high achievers? Did Kirsty Wark take a "this season's must-have patent faux leather squishy holdall" into school? Should I allow my precious angel to sashay into school on her first day swinging a handbag in the style of a diminutive clubber, or should I handcuff her to a proper satchel – thereby bolstering her chances of presenting Newsnight, yet perhaps ruining her social life forever? Where's the nanny state when you really need it?